9:03 pm, October 7, 2011
THIS weekend sees 31 brave teams travelling more than 800 miles to the home of Ferrari to raise money for charity.
We say brave because they will be getting to Maranello in cars that cost £500 or less – AND they have to get home again.
Along the way there will be French motorways, Switzerland, the Alps and the Italian Autostradas to contend with.
And that’s not even mentioning the fact that wacky costumes and even wackier cars are encouraged too.
We start at Dover on day one and drive 474 miles to Broug-en-Bresse, France. On day two we’ll head across the Alps, to Maranello.
Day three we will be spending some time at Ferrari and at Maranello, and after that we’ll head back to Broug-en-Bresse where we’ll be staying on the final night before making the journey back to Dover on the last day.
The whole trip will see us cover a total of 1,701 miles!
We have virtually every type of car you could imaging this year competing in the event – from a Fiat Seicento to a Black Cab. And there’s even a team whose two team members have just got married and are using Bangers4BEN as their honeymoon (more on this soon).
All of the teams will be raising money for the automotive charity BEN whose sterling work is always an inspiration for the motor industry. Last year we raised £13k for BEN and this year’s Bangers4BEN IV, with the biggest entry list ever, will hopefully raise lots of dosh for it. too.
In 2010 we took part in a 1997 Honda Civic dressed up like a USAF Blackbird SR71. We can’t reveal what we will be turning up in this year, but let’s say it is going to be more ‘creative’.
That’s one of the beauties of Bangers4BEN – we don’t what will be turning up. Last year a Nissan dressed up as a rabbit and a Saab which had taken inspiration from the DeLorean in Back to the Future surprised us all.
We won’t know until Saturday what mad concoctions the teams will be turning up in at the crack of dawn at Dover, but we have heard some rumours of madness.
We’ll be tweeting relentless on the trip – follow BEN and Car Dealer’s editor James Baggott now – and will be blogging away with lots of pictures. Stay tuned on bangers4ben.com too.
